Derby County Faces Injury Crisis as Jacob Widell Zetterström Ruled Out

Derby County’s season has taken another heavy blow with the news that first-choice goalkeeper Jacob Widell Zetterström faces up to two months on the sidelines with a knee injury.

The 28-year-old was hurt in the second half of Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Birmingham City. For a few worrying moments he looked certain to come off, signalling discomfort and drawing the physio team on, yet he stayed on and finished the game. The damage, though, has now caught up with him.

Scans have forced Widell Zetterström to pull out of the Sweden squad for their four upcoming Nations League group games against Romania, Poland and Bosnia-Herzegovina in late September and early October. His absence stretches beyond the international stage. Derby do not expect him back until around mid-November, a grim timetable that could see him miss as many as eight Championship fixtures.

For a side already battling at the wrong end of the table, that is a brutal setback.

The warning signs were there even before the keeper’s injury on Saturday. Earlier in the match, Henrik Meister had been taken off on a stretcher after a head knock, another jarring image in a season that is rapidly becoming defined by the sight of players leaving the pitch in distress.

Meister and Widell Zetterström now join a treatment-room roll call that is starting to read like a first-team sheet. Matt Clarke, Derry Murkin, Filip Bilbija, Rhian Brewster, Craig Forsyth and Lewis Travis are all out, leaving the Rams stripped of experience, depth and continuity at a time when they can least afford it.

Losing Widell Zetterström stings that bit more because Derby did so well to keep him in the summer. His performances at the World Cup drew serious transfer interest, yet the club held firm, building their plans around a goalkeeper who had grown into one of their most reliable figures.

Now they must turn to Josh Vickers. The understudy has been named on the bench in every game this season but has yet to be truly tested in the Championship spotlight for Derby. That is about to change. With the Rams low in the table, confidence fragile and the fixture list unrelenting, Vickers steps into a role where any mistake is magnified and every save can shift the mood of a club.

Derby’s season was already a grind. With their World Cup keeper now watching from the stands, it is about to ask even bigger questions of the squad left standing.